Last chance to enter the 2013 Ars Child’s Play charity contest

Just hours left to add to our $25.6K charity haul.

You guys are amazing. That's all there is to it. In just over two weeks, Ars Technica readers have donated $25,623.23 to the Ars Technica Child's Play charity drive, to help provide toys and games to sick kids in hospitals around the world. Just over 400 of you have donated and earned yourself an entry into our biggest contest ever, with over 90 piece of swag to be given away.

If you aren't among those entrants yet, don't worry... there's still time. But not much. You have until midnight Eastern time tonight, Friday, January 4th, to make your donation and send in your digital receipt to log your entry (and add to our running total). More details on how to donate and enter are below, so don't miss your chance.

We're within spitting distance of last year's $26,000 charity fundraising record. Let's dig deep and set a new high-water mark this year. For the children.UPDATE: As of 3:19 p.m. Eastern time, our grand total stands at $26.417.38, which Ben Kuchera concedes is a new record for the annual Ars Technica Child's Play drive (which he'd been running since 2007). Well done everyone! There's still about 9 hours left, though, so let's blow that old record out of the water!

How to enter

Donating is simple. Head over to the official Child's Play site to donate via PayPal, or pick out an item from the Amazon wish list for a participating hospital directly. Donate as much or as little as you feel comfortable with; every little bit helps.

Once that's done, it's time to register your entry in our contest. Just grab a digital copy of your receipt (a screenshot, or simply a cut and paste of the text) and send it to ChildsPlay@arstechnica.com by the end of the day on Friday, January 4, 2013. Every receipt counts as an entry in a drawing for one of the prizes outlined in the post linked below. (One entry per person, and each person can only win up to one prize. US residents only. See official rules for entry without purchase.) We'll then contact the winners and have them choose their prize by January 31 (choosing takes place in the order the winners are drawn).

I'll take your 'Lame' claim and raise you a big 'Fuck you, I'm in'. I was on the fence on this earlier and quite frankly had forgotten about it. So, as a personal rebuttal on behalf all non-assholes, I'm off to buy a gift for some kid now. Ars, I'll have my receipt in soon. Thanks for the reminder.

Edit: In retrospect I should have added an /s tag as it was meant to be more of a rallying cry as opposed to a personal attack. I've since donated, and would like to note that apparently LosD had had done the same earlier as well. No offense meant.

I don't think it was clarified in the other threads, so I figured I'll bring it up here: Does donating to Child's Play through the Humble Bundle count, or do only direct donations (and the postcard method) get you in?

I'll take your 'Lame' claim and raise you a big 'Fuck you, I'm in'. I was on the fence on this earlier and quite frankly had forgotten about it. So, as a personal rebuttal on behalf all non-assholes, I'm off to buy a gift for some kid now. Ars, I'll have my receipt in soon. Thanks for the reminder.

I'll take your 'Lame' claim and raise you a big 'Fuck you, I'm in'. I was on the fence on this earlier and quite frankly had forgotten about it. So, as a personal rebuttal on behalf all non-assholes, I'm off to buy a gift for some kid now. Ars, I'll have my receipt in soon. Thanks for the reminder.

Don't worry, I donated. But it's still incredibly lame.

It is, but there's really nothing Ars can do about it. Some countries require enormous cash deposits up front before running the contest and that would tally up to millions of dollars if they tried to make this a global thing.

I don't think it was clarified in the other threads, so I figured I'll bring it up here: Does donating to Child's Play through the Humble Bundle count, or do only direct donations (and the postcard method) get you in?

I was curious also. Tho I was fine with giving a separate donation. Humble Bundle as a entry feels like double dipping and against the point of this charity drive.

I don't think it was clarified in the other threads, so I figured I'll bring it up here: Does donating to Child's Play through the Humble Bundle count, or do only direct donations (and the postcard method) get you in?

Hmm, but how would someone go about establishing what they donated to Child's Play during the sale? Screenshot of the page showing their payment split before hitting the purchase button? The neither the Humble Bundle confirmation email now the download key page show the split.

FWIW, I'm just wondering how using the Humble Bundle purchase to qualify would work. I made a separate donation to Child's Play just now and sent in my receipt.

IMO Child's Play is one of the greatest tech-related stories ever. I'd love to see an ARS article about how it came into being, how they make it work with almost no overhead, etc. (assuming there hasn't already been one at some point).

Hmm, but how would someone go about establishing what they donated to Child's Play during the sale? Screenshot of the page showing their payment split before hitting the purchase button? The neither the Humble Bundle confirmation email now the download key page show the split.

FWIW, I'm just wondering how using the Humble Bundle purchase to qualify would work. I made a separate donation to Child's Play just now and sent in my receipt.

We're kind of taking their word for it. A copy-pasted paypal receipt isn't hard to fake either, when it comes down to it. And if people really don't want to donate, they could have sent a no-purchase-necessary postcard, as noted in the official rules.

Cool beans. This is the first post about this I read. Really nice idea for a charity. It's bad enough the rugrats are in a hospital, but to be in there and have no toys too? I like that you can pick the hospital. Newark, NJ seems deserving, so they're getting stuff.

Kyle Orland / Kyle is the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica, specializing in video game hardware and software. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He is based in Pittsburgh, PA.